The Nashville Choir’s show scheduled at the Schermerhorn January 25 featuring the Tokens Show and friends has been re-scheduled for Sunday evening October 4, 2015. For more information on the 2015 Tokens Show schedule, please visit www.TokensShow.com/shows. Our first show in Nashville this year will be April 14, 2015, featuring special guest David Crowder. Season tickets for four shows, plus a special patron-only show, are still available starting at the Most Outstanding Discounted price of $97.50. Click here for season ticket information.

Nashville’s Acclaimed Tokens Show now offers innovative, customized, and compelling programming for conferences and conventions coming to Music City. Let Tokens Show provide a Nashville experience like no other. Contact us at Info {at} TokensShow.com.

Two paragraph blurb:

The Nashville Scene recognized the Tokens radio show as Nashville’s “Best Local Variety Show” in 2013 which is a “grass-kicking shredfest” that is a “huge success,” with “genre-bending creativity.” The Tennessean calls it “one of a kind,” and a “virtuouso ensemble.” Prominent Nashville music critic Peter Cooper recently opined that Tokens “is amazing. It’s amazing that [Tokens] has integrated music, humor and scholarship into something so seamlessly entertaining.” Other reviewers have called Tokens “spectacular” and”provocative.” Best selling author Shane Claiborne calls Tokens “dazzling. magical. better than CATS … creating beauty and mischief.”

]]>http://www.tokensshow.com/conferences-and-conventions/feed/0Hymns and the Battle of Nashvillehttp://www.tokensshow.com/hymns-and-the-battle-of-nashville/
http://www.tokensshow.com/hymns-and-the-battle-of-nashville/#commentsTue, 16 Dec 2014 19:51:48 +0000http://www.tokensshow.com/?p=6107[Read More] ]]>My friend and faculty colleague Donna King serves as our regular “go to” authority on helping us sort through song and music possibilities befitting any given theme for Tokens Show. She recently worked on gathering materials for the tolling of the bells in Nashville marking the sesquicentennial of the Battle of Nashville, and we asked her to share a bit of her findings.

Also of interest may be this week’s podcast episode on the Battle of Nashville, and some segments from our show on the Civil War, “Singing Down the Pain,” recorded in 2011.

Pax, LCC

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One of the events commemorating the sesquicentennial anniversary of the Battle of Nashville is a citywide tolling of bells beginning at 4:30 today and continuing for four minutes—marking the close of the bitter and deadly battle on its second day, at dusk.

As I began collecting hymns to play on Lipscomb University’s 35-bell carillon after the tolling, I was struck again by the great sadness of that Civil War, and the great need to discover that in tragic and desperate times our humanity–or some piece of it–is still intact.

More than thirty camp books that included hymn texts were printed for soldiers; knowing the actual number distributed is problematic, but some estimates are easily more than one million.* Books, sized smaller than regular hymnals to easily fit into pockets, were printed by various Christian denominations, other Christian organizations, and even government agencies. The U.S. Sanitary Commission, for example, distributed The Soldier’s Friend, where a Union soldier could find information about burying a body, procedures for getting an artificial limb, and a substantial appendix of hymn texts. Facts like this, and titles like The Soldiers Hymn Book for Camp and Hospital, I find especially poignant—little pieces of paper crying out for the humane amidst the horrific.

These titles also explain why, for the most part, the contents were not songs written during or about the war, though Union hymnals, especially, included traditional patriotic songs. Mostly, the soldiers carried, read, and sang hymns already familiar and meaningful to them, no matter which side of the conflict. Common themes were duty, the authority of Christ, and assurance of comfort. Titles printed in many books, and still sung in many churches today, were “Come Ye Who Love the Lord (Marching to Zion),” “God Moves in a Mysterious Way,” “Come Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy,” and “Am I a Soldier of the Cross?” Yes, clearly, conflating the Army of the Lord with the Battle at Hand has a long history, but the acknowledgement of not knowing, while placing faith in the God who does, is also timeless, as Cowper’s eighteenth-century words remind us:

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm.

One seasonal hymn that was penned during the Civil War years, and has become timeless, was not included in any of these soldiers’ hymnals. In fact, its use in hymnals of the nineteenth century was minimal, though its popularity as a hymn increased with each successive American conflict, peaking during the 1960s and 1970s. When Henry Wadsworth Longfellow penned “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” in1863, his recent life was one of conflict and sorrow. His wife had died tragically in 1861, and he had disagreed sharply with his oldest son about participation in the war. Charles, the son, finally feeling bound by duty, had joined the army early in 1863 without telling his father, leaving only a note; then, he was seriously injured in a November battle. Longfellow’s reasons for despair must have seemed many, and his despair is little restrained this text: “Hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, good-will to men.” Yet, by the end the poet turns, like the psalmists and prophets, to hope, to the Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. These best-known verses continue to resonate in our time as they did in his:

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
and wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

*****

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
“For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.”

]]>http://www.tokensshow.com/hymns-and-the-battle-of-nashville/feed/0DispatchesFrom the Buckle – 071http://www.tokensshow.com/dispatchesfrom-the-buckle-071/
http://www.tokensshow.com/dispatchesfrom-the-buckle-071/#commentsMon, 15 Dec 2014 18:55:01 +0000http://www.tokensshow.com/?p=6105[Read More] ]]>This week’s podcast features host Lee C. Camp’s reflections upon the sesquicentennial of the Battle of Nashville, December 15-16, 1864, fought in Lee’s neighborhood, and then concludes with some segments from the Tokens Show entitled “Singing Down the Pain,” recorded in the Downtown Presbyterian Church which was used as a hospital following the battle. For more pictures on the trip, visit the Facebook album here, and to get the CD from the show, visit here.

—————————————-

Greetings my friends: a blessed Advent to you.

We have taken too long a hiatus from our podcasting; and I shall not promise that we shall be back on a good regular schedule. But I had a few things I wanted to say on this beautiful Monday morning in Nashville, December 15, 2014: early this morning, early dawn, I could make out the heavy mist that lay upon us here in Nashville, and I had time to make a fire in the fireplace to warm up the house when it was still quiet before the boys were up getting ready for school, and I looked out upon the sun beginning to peek through the gray in the south east, the barren trees bearing witness to 150 years ago: most of the trees in our yard our hackberrys, which local lore has it at least, are not native to middle Tennessee. Hackberry seeds were brought here, so some say, in the feed wagons of the Union Army during the Civil War: and it is appropriate that here in our neighborhood there are many hackberrys, for it was precisely 150 years ago today that the Battle of Nashville was waged, 5000 or more killed.

Soon this morning the sun soon burned off the mist, and now it’s a beautiful, clear, cold December day. It seems so odd that thousands of people were killed here around my house, in my neighborhood, and so little to be said about it.

So I wanted to say something about it: to remember that there were many men of virtue and courage who nonetheless killed and murdered that day, and were killed and murdered that day. They gave themselves to something they believed in; and they were willing to die, and to kill, for what they believed in. They obviously had immense courage. And in a day in which we are so deeply fashioned by fear, it is worth honoring men of courage.

But to say such does not mean that we do not also have something to say about war-making; about those who lead well meaning people into war; or about the fetish Americans continue to have with war-making, with violence and slaughter. The American Civil war has been heralded by historians of war-making as an epic event in modern warfare: it gave us the rise of so-called “total war,” in which civilian populations become targets for war, in which industrialized mechanization becomes the means for mass slaughter: some 600,000 would be slaughtered in that war.

To honor the courage of men killed around me does not mean we do not also have something to say about the way in which the Gospel was pre-empted by sectarian allegiances. We have, it seems to me, completely missed the point of so-called “separation of church and state” when we then proceed falsely to assert that “the Gospel is not political.” Well meaning people mean by that, of course, that they do not want Christianity co-opted into any partisan political agenda, like Republican, Democrat, Tea-Party or Socialist; and on that score, I am in full agreement.

But that is an altogether different claim than to say “the Gospel is not political.” The Gospel IS undoubtedly political: it is a claim about the Kingdom of God. It is not that the Gospel is not political; it is that we, that I, remain so stubbornly opposed to the political claims that the Gospel makes. Namely, we do not want to love our enemies; we do not want to forgive seventy times seven; we do not want to pray for the good of those who spitefully use us. Instead, we want to see them vanquished, defeated, even humiliated. We want to win, because we think (we always think) we are the good guys, and that God is on our side, and that we ought therefore to win.

But the Gospel proclaims that victory comes not through vanquishing or killing one’s enemies; instead, the Gospel claims that victory comes through suffering love; that baptism trumps any and all other pledges of allegiance; that even if our enemies kill us, that the resurrection of Jesus is the down payment ensuring that we too shall be resurrected unto life.

I re-iterate: it is a falsehood that such claims are “not political.” It is that we, that I, do not like that sort of political ethic, because it scares us to no end. That is one reason I can say today, on this cold December 15 morning, 150 years after those days in which numerous men were slaughtered here in our neighborhood, that I honor the courage of soldiers: for it is never easy to place oneself in the space of suffering, in the space that one may be killed. I pray to have the courage that soldiers have. And I pray to have the courage that does not take up arms, and I pray to have the courage that can enable me to be willing to love those whom I hate.

We gathered a few years ago for a Tokens Show in the Downtown Presbyterian Church, used as a hospital 150 years ago today and tomorrow, following the Battle of Nashville. We share here some segments from that show.

Lee C. Camp, Professor of Theology & Ethics at Lipscomb University, in Nashville, Tennessee, is the host of WWW.TOKENSSHOW.COMand the Dispatches from the Buckle Podcast, and the author of WHO IS MY ENEMY?

]]>http://www.tokensshow.com/dispatchesfrom-the-buckle-071/feed/0This week's podcast features host Lee C. Camp's reflections upon the sesquicentennial of the Battle of Nashville, December 15-16, 1864, fought in Lee's neighborhood, and then concludes with some segments from the Tokens Show entitled "Singing Down the ...This week's podcast features host Lee C. Camp's reflections upon the sesquicentennial of the Battle of Nashville, December 15-16, 1864, fought in Lee's neighborhood, and then concludes with some segments from the Tokens Show entitled "Singing Down the ...Tokensno21:282015 Season Ticketshttp://www.tokensshow.com/2015-season-tickets/
http://www.tokensshow.com/2015-season-tickets/#commentsMon, 08 Dec 2014 17:21:15 +0000http://www.tokensshow.com/?p=6101[Read More] ]]>Get your season ticket to the show that the Nashville Scene describes as a “grass-kicking shredfest” that is a “huge success,” with “genre-bending creativity,” and The Tennessean calls “one of a kind,” and a “virtuouso ensemble.” Music critic Peter Cooper recently opined that Tokens “is amazing. It’s amazing that [Tokens] has integrated music, humor and scholarship into something so seamlessly entertaining.” Other reviewers have called Tokens “spectacular,” “provocative,” and a “marvel.” Sojourners opined that “…if A Prairie Home Companion ever moved South and got religion—or at least went to divinity school—it might look a lot like TOKENS.” And fans describe Tokens as “UH-MAZING,” “awesome,” “unforgettable,” and “wow!”

http://www.tokensshow.com/2015-season-tickets/feed/0From the mouths of babeshttp://www.tokensshow.com/from-the-mouth-of-babes/
http://www.tokensshow.com/from-the-mouth-of-babes/#commentsThu, 04 Dec 2014 17:04:35 +0000http://www.tokensshow.com/?p=6058[Read More] ]]>Here in the Bible Belt I hear a few white men (mostly, and occasionally white women) appearing to question the reality of white privilege, and speaking in terms that seem to assume that the fundamental locus of moral questions is the individual, rather than the more complex, and I think more realistic vision of the New Testament: that, indeed, individuals must accept or reject a call to live according to a vision of the good and liberating and rightly ordered will of God; but that there are also, in fact, great powers of deception and lies and injustice woven into the very fabric of human existence, of our communities, and policies, and institutions; and no less important, woven into the stories we tell.

I came today, looking through old journals, upon disturbing stories I had long forgotten, from when I was a younger man, still a boy in many ways, and Laura and I were living in Nairobi, Kenya. The country was relatively new to independence, the marks of western colonialism still manifest in numerous social realities, of language and commerce and cultural morays. Laura and I were working at a school in a slum. My friends Sammy and Francis would take me out into the streets, and we would visit a particular group of street boys, boys who lived on the streets, who ate out of the trash piles, who survived literally trash-pile to hand to mouth. They slept and took refuge in a wretched alley, each end of the alley way blocked by immense piles of garbage, garbage that would ooze a yellowish filth over my shoes as I would try to ease my way up and over, trying to get to their little street-boy village hidden away behind those piles, the smell of that refuse searing the nostrils, staying with one for days, long after the yellowish muck had been washed from one’s shoes.

One day—April 6, 1994—we went to visit, and began to discuss Bible stories. These African boys began to discuss the origin of the black man. “Obviously,” one said, in my own paraphrase, “the black man was the result of something going wrong with the white man—after all, we know Adam and Eve were white, because we’ve seen them on movies.”

Then another street boy told the story of Noah: when Noah was building his ark, he grew weary, and so took a rest. While he was resting, some people came and started using the ark as a toilet. It was used to such an extent as a toilet, that it was filled with shit. As the people who had just used the ark as a toilet departed, their skin contracted an awful disease. They approached Moses to ask what they should do to cleanse themselves from the disease. They were told to go back to the ark, and cover themselves with the shit found there, and they would be healed. They did so, finally emptying the ark of the human waste, covering themselves in it. Such, so this young African said, was the origin of the black man.

For 48 years, AGAPE has been a trusted source for building strong families.
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From preschool children to mature adults, we address life issues such as relationship problems and grief, to more serious clinical issues like depression, anxiety, ADHD, or eating disorders. We are also a source for support groups for children and adults. Counseling offices can be found all across Middle Tennessee.

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Sometimes, parents may be faced with the critical choice of how to care for their children due to substance abuse rehabilitation, need of medical or psychiatric care, job loss, or homelessness. Knowing that children are being cared for and nurtured is vital to recovery and that is how AGAPE can help. We provide temporary, out-of-home placement for children with fully trained and approved foster parents who are backed by our staff of professional social workers. A stable home for children and temporary assistance with parenting may be the best step toward restoring families.

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With the belief and conviction that every child deserves a family, AGAPE provides homes for newborn infants as well as older children. More than 85% of our adoptions are children who are older, have siblings or are of minority race; some are physically or mentally handicapped. A “forever family” is our goal for each of them.

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We provide a safe, caring place for an expectant mothers to turn to when facing an unplanned pregnancy. Our professional staff works closely with each mother, helping to make a life plan for the child, whether through parenting or adoption.

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In addition to the information above, it is important to note that in its history, AGAPE has served over 5,000 children in placement services. Over 1,000 have been adopted into forever homes. In 2013 alone, AGAPE conducted over 13,000 counseling sessions serving more than 1,700 counseling clients.

Location and More InformationAGAPE’s main campus is located at 4555 Trousdale Drive, Nashville, Tennessee 37204 (615-781-3000). Information about all their services, as well as contact information, can be found on their website, AGAPENASHVILLE.ORG.

Their missions statement sums it up well: AGAPE exists to serve the needs of families, children, and adults in Middle Tennessee with an unconditional agape love through Professional Counseling and Psychological Services, Adoption Services, Crisis Foster Care, and Maternity Counseling

We at Tokens are mighty thankful for the wonderful work and ministry performed by the most outstanding folks at AGAPE. And we encourage you to seek more information if they can be of service to you or someone you love.

For some, tolerance is a noble endeavor. Many speak of the need to tolerate other religions, other viewpoints, other orientations, other cultures, or maybe even simply other denominations. But for others, and hopefully for Christians, tolerance does not go far enough. Tolerance merely allows the other to speak without actually taking the time to listen and understand. Tolerance says the other can stay but just so long as we don’t have to genuinely engage one another. Tolerance, itself, is not a Christian discipline. Christianity teaches hospitality.

Hospitality takes tolerance to the next level. It is inviting, welcoming, and gracious. Hospitality encourages the other to speak, and then listens, and engages the other in their story. Tolerance says, ‘You may stay, but on your side of town.’ Hospitality, though, is an open door. It means inviting the Muslim, the Arab, the enemy, the poor immigrant, the former prisoner, the stranger, the friend to come inside and be at home. Hospitality invites everyone to the welcome table, to break bread and fellowship.

Since the creation of the Church, eating together has been a central component of Christian practice. The book of Acts tell us that the disciples met in each other’s houses for the ‘breaking of bread; they shared their food gladly and generously’ (2:42). Throughout the Gospels, Jesus is constantly seen participating in meals, eating with those that mainstream society claimed should not be welcome at the table: tax collectors, debtors, prostitutes; in short, the ‘other.’ Many of the parables Jesus told describing God’s kingdom centered around the image of a feast table where the poor and outcast are ushered in off the street to share in the King’s celebration meal. The Gospels record Jesus performing two miracles pertaining to food: the feeding of the 4,000 and the feeding of the 5,000. For some scholars, particularly referring to the Gospel of Mark, the miraculous nature (or at least emphasis) of these stories is not the multiplication of the food, but rather the fact that there was enough for everyone. This is God’s kingdom. All of people’s basic needs are met. No one has more than he or she needs, and no one has less. There is simply enough. The meal was a microcosm of this reality, but the disciples translated this ethic into all areas of their lives, sharing all they had so that all were provided for. As Ched Myers writes, the disciples, in keeping with the example set by Jesus, created an economy of enough within a cosmology of grace.

At the welcome table, everyone is disarmed, and society’s classes are destroyed. As ethicist and theologian John Howard Yoder notes, equality is present at the table as the meal provides the space for the ‘condemnation of economic segregation’ (Body Politics, 22). At the table, host and guest are made one as everyone eats together. Power structures do not exist at the welcome table, only relationship and fellowship. The powerful are dethroned, and the poor are exalted – all by the sharing of a meal.

During my time serving as a volunteer chaplain at Riverbend maximum security prison—before the warden banned me—I often shared a meal with those working in the chaplain’s department. Prison at its very core is a place of segregation, physically, relationally, visually, etc. Prisoners all wear the same attire, always with a white stripe down the leg that reads, “Department of Corrections.” One Friday, before a chapel service that night, a few other inside friends joined the chaplain’s department for dinner. We all gathered in the office and handed out plates of rice, salad, and enchiladas, compliments of the head chaplain, Jeannie Alexander. Some of us sat on bookshelves, others in chairs, others on tables, and still others stood. There was laughter; there was conversation; there was silence; and there were second helpings—but there were no stripes. There were no insiders and outsiders. There was just “us.”

The night before Jesus was killed by the powers of his day, he broke bread with those closest to him, those with whom he had shared his life of ministry: essentially, his community. The welcome table is the lifeblood of true community. We come together with those among whom we live and work so that we might encourage and strengthen one another in our vocations. The meal provides the opportunity for everyone to break from life’s hectic routines (except for maybe the cooks!) and be reminded of the presence of God and the vitality of community. During the holidays, the meal is often the central point of the seasons’ events. For many families, the meal is a chance to regroup and reconnect after a long day, or for extended families at the holidays, after many months. The meal is a place to be renewed and rejuvenated, and perhaps even to reconcile offenses. In my family, the table has always provided the occasion for laughter, tears, and storytelling. Some of the most important lessons and conversations of my life have occurred around the meal table.

Hospitality and the welcome table are central components of many cultures. Within Islam, for example, one of the names for God is hospitality. In Palestine, many families, especially the poorer ones, share a meal sitting in a circle, whether at the table or on the floor, and everyone eats from a single dish laid at the center of the circle. Here there is equality. No one sits above or below anyone else, and no one has greater access to more food. Everyone is the same. If inequality exists at all, then it is in favor of the guest, who is honored and cherished.

Jesus describes and incarnates God’s kingdom as such an event. All are provided for, all are welcome, and no leaves wanting. There is enough for everyone. Today, regardless of the origins or transformation of this holiday, this community of generosity and jubilee can be celebrated. As we gather as family and friends, we both rejoice in the hospitality and fellowship that we experience but also are mindful of those who are alone. As Dickens so profoundly notes in A Christmas Carol, this season of the year is one where ‘want is keenly felt and abundance rejoices.’ May we always and in all ways extend the welcome table to those who so intensely feel this want and are left in the cold of despair and involuntary isolation. And may we also celebrate this economy of enough, fellowshipping in the breaking of bread, as we both literally and paradigmatically participate in God’s beloved community.

Michael McRay (M.Phil. Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation, Trinity College Dublin | at Belfast) is adjunct professor at Lipscomb University, lecturing in forgiveness and reconciliation, international conflict resolution, storytelling, et al. He is the co-founder of No Exceptions Prison Collective, organizer and host of Tenx9 Nashville Storytelling, and author of Letters from “Apartheid Street” and the forthcoming Where the River Bends: Considering Forgiveness and Transformation in the Lives of the Incarcerated (Cascade, 2015), with a foreword by Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu.

As of the time of this post, tickets are available for the Tokens at the Ryman 2014. Visit our Tickets page for details.

]]>http://www.tokensshow.com/the-welcome-table-a-thanksgiving-reflection-revisited/feed/02015 Season Tickets :: Facebook specialhttp://www.tokensshow.com/2015-season-tickets-fb/
http://www.tokensshow.com/2015-season-tickets-fb/#commentsSat, 08 Nov 2014 16:39:20 +0000http://www.tokensshow.com/?p=6092[Read More] ]]>Get your season ticket to the show that the Nashville Scene describes as a “grass-kicking shredfest” that is a “huge success,” with “genre-bending creativity,” and The Tennessean calls “one of a kind,” and a “virtuouso ensemble.” Music critic Peter Cooper recently opined that Tokens “is amazing. It’s amazing that [Tokens] has integrated music, humor and scholarship into something so seamlessly entertaining.” Other reviewers have called Tokens “spectacular,” “provocative,” and a “marvel.” Sojourners opined that “…if A Prairie Home Companion ever moved South and got religion—or at least went to divinity school—it might look a lot like TOKENS.” And fans describe Tokens as “UH-MAZING,” “awesome,” “unforgettable,” and “wow!”

Limited time special for new season ticket subscribers only: on top of the existing 20% plus savings, get an additional 10% off for first time season ticket subscribers by using promotional code FB2015 at checkout.